Strategic Volunteer Engagement Business Challenge GroupJuly 27, 12:30 – 2:00 p.m. ET

Agenda for the call

• Welcome/Introductions

• Context of Early Grade Reading Mobilization Group business challenges

• Review purpose of this group and review agenda

• Breakout: Assessment/description of where participants are now

• Strategic Volunteer Engagement: What’s Different?

• Developing a plan: Why and how

• Peer sharing: What do we have in place already?

• Wrap up/Homework/Next call

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Early Grade Reading Mobilization GroupGoals

For members:

• Get community results on early grade reading

• Increase revenue for early grade reading strategies

• Engage more individuals to give, advocate and volunteer to support early grade reading

For the United Way network:

• Effective practices to drive social change

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• Get community results on early grade reading • Increase revenue for early grade reading strategies

• Engage individuals to give, advocate and volunteer to support early grade reading

If we wish to be effective, we will need to:

Executing on the Business Model:How United Way works to deliver results on early grade reading

Operate as an integrated

and aligned organization

Have the right skills,

competencies & leadership

Create & deepen

relationships with

individuals &institutions

Measure, evaluate &

communicate results

Engage and align with the community

Develop strategies and focus

actions

Mobilize resources

Align and execute on plans and strategies

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EGR Mobilization Group Process• Basic support

• Tools, resources, training, and technical assistance (e.g. the primer)

• Foundational areas (e.g., Turning Outward, early grade reading strategies)

• UWW, external experts, other United Ways

• Business challenges

• Facilitated peer learning/action projects (e.g., enhanced workforce campaign pilot; strategic volunteer engagement)

• Accelerate alignment and adoption of new business practices

• Monthly meetings of cross-functional teams and homework

• Bi-monthly full group meetings

• Topics: 18-month goals, basic support issues, business challenges

• CEO Change Leadership Group

• Online peer-to-peer engagement

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Business challenge groupsFacilitated peer learning/action projects

Goals

• Accelerate alignment and adoption of new business practices

• Develop innovative solutions to address barriers to execution

• Develop and improve tools to help in implementing new practices

• Improve skills needed to implement practices

• Identify measures of success and create systems for optimizing performance including clarifying competencies needed for success

Business challenge groupsMember commitments

• Participating in monthly calls with a cross-functional team

• Following-up between calls with "homework"

– Applying tools

– Trying out new practices

– Posting new discussions

– Sharing progress online

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Strategic Volunteer EngagementThis business challenge group

Goals

• Link volunteer support to community early grade reading strategies

– Effectively and strategically execute the reader/tutor/mentor campaign

• Deepen ongoing relationships with new and current early grade reading volunteers

Objectives for call

• Assess where each participating site is with regard to their approach/structure for issue-focused volunteer opportunities

• Understand what the participants want to learn and/or do from their participation in this business challenge

• Introduce/Share the principles of “strategic volunteer engagement”

• Understand alignment between strategic volunteer engagement and other business practices

• Discuss importance of having a “strategic volunteer engagement plan” that guides the EGR volunteer approach

• Use peer to peer sharing as a way of increasing learning

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Breakout sessionQuestions

• What is the volunteer landscape in your community? Are there many opportunities? What organizations are making it happen?

• What is United Way’s role? Are all functions aligned to support volunteer engagement?

• What one question/concern/hope do you have that you want participation this group to answer?

A journey of a thousand leagues begins with a single step.

-- 老子

Lao Zi, Chinese Philosopher

Changing Role of Volunteer Engagement

FROM: TO:

Sporadic, broad, general volunteer connector

Intentional, focused volunteer mobilizer for education, income and health

Low-visibility; “optional” activity

Highly visible; core United Way business strategy

Nice Necessary

Strategic Volunteer Engagement Goals

Drive impact in the areas of education, income and health by recruiting people to create lasting change through volunteering.

Build and deepen relationships with people by inspiring and inviting them to take an active role with United Way to advance the common good.

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Volunteer EngagementCore Strategies

1. Develop and leverage United Way Volunteer Engagement efforts to drive impact

2. Create signature volunteer events – e.g., National Day of Action June 21, Reader/tutor/mentor recruitment event (Sept)

3. Strengthen employee volunteer programs

4. Develop Student United Ways

5. Develop online and on-the-ground volunteer opportunities and grow liveunited.org

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Timeline and deliverables

• Volunteer engagement strategy/plan – By end of year

– Relationship Management

– Linking to impact strategies

• Apply strategy as part of a volunteer event – January 2012

What is in place already?

• Who has a Relationship Management system/culture/processes in place to apply to volunteer engagement?

• Who has intentionally linked volunteer opportunities to community issues whether early grade reading or not?

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Homework for next meeting, Part I

• Read the United Way Guide to Strategic Volunteer Engagement and note issues/challenges/questions raised (on the online group site in the file cabinet for this business challenge)

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Homework for next meeting, Part II

Creating impact by volunteer engagement in early grade reading

Answer these questions (adapted from pg. 22 in the Guide):

• Have we declared early grade reading as an impact goal?

• What work do we already have underway in early grade reading?

• Will new or increased volunteer engagement in early grade reading have a lasting impact? If so, how? If not, what is the plan for developing strategies where can volunteers make the greatest impact?

• Who else in the community is leading efforts in early grade reading? What is the volunteer component of their work? How can we avoid duplication, and instead find our unique role? What gaps exist that United Way could fill?

• How do we connect volunteering with opportunities to give and advocate?

• How can we ensure that our strategy reflects the diversity of our community and is inclusive?

Need at least one volunteer

By next Wednesday, with help from UWW and Collaborative Communications:

• Pull out most important learnings from meeting notes

• Post learnings online and discussion question

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Brief assessment of this call

• What worked?

• What would we change for next time?